"Teaching" language or allowing its acquisition through a "communicative approach"? : Strategies and roles of teachers in foreign language didactics

Lerntheoretische Erkenntnisse werden nicht immer gleich von der Praxis rezipiert. So wandelt sich der Begriff vom Lernen oft schneller als die Lehrkonzepte. Aber immer wieder entdeckt die Praxis auch intuitiv Methoden, die die Sprachlehrforschung erst im Nachhinein evaluieren kann.This article first of all provides a historical retrospective of preferred strategies for teaching foreign languages down to the present day. It touches on behaviouristic and cognitive theories all the way to strategies for communicative acquisition of foreign language and constructivist approaches. Because it is for the most part accepted in theory nowadays that foreign language skills are acquired by learners in a construction process, the notion of the foreign language teacher is also changing. Teachers are now being assigned more the role of a learning counsellor who creates learning “occasions” and provides feedback. This theoretical requirement is usually not covered by the field of practice, however: both skills models in training teachers as well as teaching material, academic books or continuing education programmes for people learning languages can still identify many instructive aspects of the teaching role. Finally, the article discussion the question of whether there is a special form of language acquisition for adults. It then forwards some recommendations for future research

The use of ICT in the assessment of modern languages: the English context and European viewpoints

The ever increasing explosion of highly attractive multimedia resources on offer has boosted the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in the teaching and learning of modern languages. The use of ICT to assess languages is less frequent, however, although online testing is starting to develop. This paper examines the national context for the assessment of modern foreign language proficiency in England, outlines the kinds of assessment currently available and the development of electronic forms of assessment and compares the above with the survey results of a European Union (EU) funded project on current good practice in online assessment of languages in other European countries. The findings indicate that speaking is inadequately served by online testing as tests currently focus primarily on receptive language skills. The implications for future successful online testing include the incorporation of interactive skills and effective formative feedback

Control in the process of foreign languages distance training in a nonlinguistic higher education institution

The article covers the issues of learning a foreign language in a non-linguistic higher education institution. The authors show the importance of using the author’s distant Moodle-based student courses to increase the efficiency of control in teaching students a foreign language in a nonlinguistic higher education institution. The factors for implementing external feedback (control by the teacher) are proposed: the content of control; control functions; types of control; control methods; forms of contro

PENGARUH BUDAYA BAHASA PERTAMA DALAM PERKEMBANGAN BELAJAR BAHASA INDONESIA SEBAGAI BAHASA ASING: STUDI KASUS PADA PENUTUR BAHASA JEPANG

Culture is an integral element in a series of teaching and learning foreign languages, as well asIndonesian as a foreign language. First language culture that ingrained may give effect to the speakers when they learn foreign language. Sometimes the influence give a positive impact, butalso able to give negative impact that resulted in the progress of learning. In Japanese culture,"appreciate and respect to senior" is very important in establishing networks and maintainrelationships. This culture is always show in Japanese lives, not only in Japan but also in othercountry. This culture also adhere tightly when Japanese speakers learn Indonesian as a foreignlanguage in Indonesia. The respect between junior to senior and appreciate seniors often giveboth positive and negative impact in Indonesian language class. In the case of Japanesespeakers who learn in groups, we found several conditions that do not normally occur in aheterogeneous learner. In Japanese speakers language class, the interaction rarely occursnaturally because junior learner usually wait for senior learners say something, answerquestions or give feedback from teacher talk. Nevertheless, this condition caused learningprogress of senior learners increases. Senior learners have enough time to convey the idea sothat the learning progress increases. In addition, the motivation to learn the Indonesianlanguage as a foreign language do not change, even otherwise growing and their self-esteemwas awake

Foreign Language students’ perceptions of a reflective approach to text correction

This paper presents a teaching model developed to encourage second-year university students of Italian to reflect upon their writing process and to consider error correction as an active source of learning. While composing their own autobiography, students were encouraged to draw on teacher indirect feedback in order to self-correct errors, to incorporate this feedback in the redrafting of text, and to reflect on their use of linguistic forms. It is argued that this combination of teaching strategies – which forms the model explored in this paper – plays a crucial role in assisting students to take responsibility for their own learning. To develop this argument, this paper firstly outlines the academic background and the teaching context from which the model was developed. Secondly, it describes the key components of the model and their application in a second-year Italian course at Griffith University. In particular, it explores a reflective approach to text correction, which combines direct and indirect feedback and aims to foster independence from teacher intervention and reflection on learning strategies. Thirdly, it analyses student perceptions of this model in order to clarify its educational value in a foreign language (FL) learning context. It concludes by identifying pedagogical implications for future application

Learning vocabulary through image sketching among primary school children.

Vocabulary has long been neglected by most linguists and language teachers who either regard the teaching of it as unnecessary or even determined to the learning of a second language. In recent years, however, interest in the teaching/learning vocabulary has revived and once again a number of linguists and language teachers are involved in attempts to facilitate vocabulary acquisition by the foreign learner of English. This paper introduces a technique of teaching/learning vocabulary that aims to make the task not only more enjoyable for both teacher and learner but also more meaningful. The technique in question is a variation of the so-called mnemonic techniques which seek to create an unusual association between the word form and its meaning. But the technique differs from the keyword technique in important ways. First of all, it makes no attempt to establish any link between the learner’s first language and English. Secondly, it involves the learners taking time – about 2 or 3 minutes – to sketch an image of the word or expression under study. The programme requires the retraining of service teachers who are provided with draw upon their experience in conducting of 20 students in Sek.Keb.Serdang, Selangor. The feedback received from the students supports the vocabulary programmes from image sketching

Editorial

This final 2019 issue of Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching brings together six original empirical studies and two book reviews. In the first paper, Marco Octavio Cancino Avila reports the results of a study that investigated the learning opportunities arising in classroom interactions, placing special emphasis on the contribution of teachers’ and learners’ overlapped turns. Using conversational analysis, he analyzed extracts from six classes taught by three teachers to adult learners of English as a foreign language in Chile. He found that teachers’ skill in appropriately handling learners’ turns that overlapped or directly followed their own had a positive impact on participation and language learning as long as learners were given adequate interactional space (Sert, 2015). The second contribution by Reza Shirani also focuses upon classroom interaction, with the caveat that the main concern is with the effectiveness of different types of corrective feedback (CF). The study explored the relationship between the level of explicitness of input-providing (i.e., recasts) and output-promoting (i.e., prompts) CF moves, and the occurrence of uptake and repair in a foreign language context in Iran. Using the model of error treatment proposed by Lyster and Ranta (1997) to analyze transcripts of 36 hours of classroom interactions in three intact classes, the researcher found that prompts tended to be used more frequently than recasts, which stands in contrast to previous findings, but at the same time produced evidence that greater salience of CF is a crucial factor for the occurrence of self-correction, which is in line with prior research

Employees' English language proficiency and visitors' perception of services received at Beijing Art Zone 798

This study concerns the perception of proficiency in English as a foreign language among employees in the Beijing 798 art zone plus visitors’ perception of services received and staff professionalism. The aim of the study is to establish the extent of the mismatch between the perceptions of both gallery employees and foreign visitors and of the role this plays in the overall visitor experience. Data collection comprised of a bespoke questionnaire with additional open ended questions. All questionnaires were distributed to both employees and visitors in August 2013. Based on the responses received from 100 respondents, the results showed significant misinterpretation that resulted from ineffective communication. Most visitors experienced a number of issues and faced difficulties in obtaining appropriate feedback from gallery staff. These communication problems, (relating to language barriers, either in English among local staff, or in Mandarin among overseas visitors), have lead to misunderstandings and ultimately to lower appraisals of the art works exhibited. The study offers suggestion for improvement, e.g. through the more efficient teaching of English for specific purposes, i.e. tourism, volunteering as mandatory industry training for foreign language students from nearby colleges or universities, and the extension of general information boards and signs within the art district itself. The study is limited in the number of participants (n=100) and should, therefore be repeated for higher objectivity with more participants (n>1000)